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Sunday, 6 March 2016

Evaluating ''Minecraft Planet'' e-project

Hello everybody! :)In this post I´m going to reflect my conclusions about my latest Master´s task, which consists of evaluating a CLIl e-project. I chose an ebook that is directed to fourth graders and its main learning outcome is for students to learn about the Solar System. You can find the ebook here: http://minecraftplanetforkids.weebly.com/. In order to evaluate this project I have used the following rubric and the essential PBL checklist. In this post I will analyse the positive aspects of this website, as well as its negative ones.

To start with, I would like to say that I chose this ebook because I find the idea of using Minecraft as a learning tool very interesting and innovative. If you are interested you can have a look at the ebook outline here.

On one hand, this e-project has plenty advanteges to catch students attention and keep them motivated because it is connected with children´s interests. It is an e-project divided into missions. In each one, students have to generate questions, find and use resources and develop their own answers. After that, they have to create their own products (videos, audios, blog, etc.) by using different online tools, so they develop critical thinking skills, problem solving and collaborative strategies. Therefore, the use of multimedia elements is part of the e-project content. The teacher acts as a guide in this Project Based Learning and allows the students to make some choices about the tools they can use and how to create their products. Regarding the ebook layout, I would like to say that is well-organized with a neat index, an attractive and engaging design and the contents are adequately licensed.

On the other hand, despite the fact that the contents are adecuated to the pupils´level and to the official standars of the curriculum, there is not a clear concordance between the ebook tasks and the learning outcomes they have to achieve. Moreover, the e-project creator says that each task will be evaluated following a rubric, but that rubric does not appear anywhere. Although the students have to reflect their learning by publishing their creations in the website, there is not a feedback from peer to peer. Besides, pupils don´t have to publish their results in their blogs and make some reflections about them. In connection with the website design I would like to underline that this ebook is not completly accesible to people with visual disabilities due to the fact that some letters, because of their font and colour, are difficult to read and distinguish from the background.Here is the link to my Genially presentation that summarizes my evaluation of ''Minecraft Planet'' ebook: http://www.genial.ly/View/Index/56d87ee01561e80f14716e52I chose the online tool Genially to create my presentation following my teacher´s piece of advice. I find this tool very attractive, innovative and colourful. It has a very creative approach and allows you to create amazing and original presentations, Cvs, infographics, postcards and posters. However, it is a new tool with some beta functions so it has to be improved. While making my presentation I missed some Power Point options such as inserting written links, figures and forms, some effects, etc. Despite all that, I have enjoyed this tool and I will keep on using it!Hope you find this post interesting!